Legend of Martyr-Queen Anise

Recorded and annotated by a Scholar of Rivermouth College

Long ago, during the time of darkness after the breaking of the world, there existed a medium sized hold at the mouth of the river. This hold was known as Bosh and it was safe and prosperous as far as these things go. The warlord kept a tight grip on his territory and made sure his slaves were kept in conditions that kept them productive. His knights kept his lands defended and drank with him at his high table in the evenings. Food and comfort were so plenty that even the slaves had enough to eat. In this hold of order and peace a girl was born, and her name was Ana.

All recorded histories of the execution of the Martyr-Queen begin as such. As nice as such a story may be we do have some few surviving records from Bosh here in the college. My contemporaries may not thank me for it but here I have endeavored to summarize the legend with only the facts or, what passes for fact in the age before the gods.
Acording to surviving documents we know there was a slave girl who began to have dreams. Her charisma was great enough that she was able to win the other slaves over to her way of thinking. Legend paints Warlord Bosh as a first follower and devotee of Jya's Chosen but in this author's humble opinion I posit that he simply recognized that he did not have the manpower to quell this mass rebellion of his slaves and rather than lose everything he chose to lean into what he must have considered a delusion. Perhaps he thought if he could win her trust he might be able to use her to expand his own influence.
Whatever his motivations he put his knights under her command and she began to move across the broken countryside towards what was then Yom. This is where my record will differ most greatly from accepted doctrine, most stories here include a large number of miracles demonstrating Jya's favor and winning a large following who would become the first imperial citizens. I do not include these stories in my account because we have no record from that time from which to draw our idea of fact. The church assures us that their records from this time come from Jya herself, and while I would never presume to disbelieve that it does not fit my requirements of written, provable accounts.
The next recorded accounts we have document her arrival in Yom. She does seem to have a much larger following upon arrival than she did leaving Bosh so any or all preceding stories may be true, though they are most likely embellished for the telling. Records from the leadership of Yom claim she demanded they submit to the divine right of Jya and that she began to sow discontent among the population when they refused. This is of course, subjective, as we know the hardened hearts of these evil men could never have allowed them to submit to Jya's natural order. Records then indicate a sort of cat an mouse period where the ruling body of Yom attempted to capture Anise and the population hid her from them. They finally drew her out by threatening to publicly execute anyone found to be a rebel sympathizer unless she gave herself up. Records here are ambiguous about whether any of these executions actually took place but we know that she did surrender herself rather than allow the suffering of her people. (A more jaded scholar than I might posit that in the wake of this threat her following stopped hiding her and gave her up to the authorities themselves rather than it being of her free will). But the rest of the story is so firmly known that I will allow myself to return to the more traditional storytelling for it's conclusion.

Our first Queen Anise was kept for three days by the godless Yomin. Prisoner beneath their grandest hall she fasted and prayed each day of her captivity, knowing that she lived and died by Jya's will.
They beat her, torturing her beyond reason, demanding to know by who's power she had come, for they refused to believe in The Mother and would only beat her more savagely when it was only Jya's name on her lips. Our Queen Anise met all this with quiet dignity, repeating only that Jya, Mother of All had shown her the way it was to be and that they need only surrender to her to find their peace. This only inflamed their evil egos and on the third day they dragged the wretched and bloody Queen out to the Great Balcony where their heathen sacrifices were performed. Our Queen Anise, facing the assembled crowd of faithful and godless alike, showed them no fear. She was possessed of the peace of The Mother and no man could take that from her. When the Yomin gave their final accusations and demanded her to speak on her own behalf she simply lifted her eyes to the heavens and pleaded to Jya that the people of Yom be spared from the sin of their leaders. A black rage of pride overtook the man who thought himself king and he seized the axe from his executioner, bearing down on our Queen. As her Most Holy blood was spilled on the Great Balcony the sky turned black, as though the sun herself could not bear to look upon the tragedy...

Thus began the Occupation of the Gods, our Mother Jya descending herself to finish what the first of her Chosen had begun. The temple in High Garden was built upon The Great Balcony in honor and memorial to Martyr-Queen Anise and the holy site draws pilgrims to this day. The rest is of course is basic history. I hope that my account makes this legend more easily digestible, if not now, then for future scholars who look upon it.

-Sevysh Noc-Allom, Scholar of Rivermouth